MONROE — As the weather continues warming and the school year winds to an end, Board of Education members are making decisions for the upcoming 2021-22 school year with each passing meeting. At the May 10 board meeting, members voted unanimously to begin the move towards Abraham Lincoln being a one-section school.
With Abe’s configuration in mind, board members then approved with an eight to one vote a proposal to go to from 4.8 to four fulltime school psychologists for the 2021-2022 school year.
District Administrator Rick Waski first brought an informational item to the board at the April 12 meeting recommending the school psychologist reduction coincide with the departure of Parkside psychologist Carol Ninmer, who announced her retirement in March.
“I feel very confident that our four school psychologists can meet the needs of our kids across the five buildings knowing that we’re in the process of reducing section at Abe Lincoln,” Director of Pupil Services Joe Monroe said.
Board member Teri Ellefson expressed concern that a change in district mental health services may be a premature step with the future still uncertain after an unprecedented year.
“I feel that we’re in a transition, especially going back to hopefully all in to schools that this is not the proper time for us to look at maybe reducing this position,” Ellefson said. “I feel like the needs are going to be there and I feel like we will put a little extra burden on the four that we would keep.”
Monroe assured board members and listeners alike that student mental health will remain a priority. Certain tasks done by school psychologists that are unrelated to student mental health will be reassigned to other staff members to ensure that the availability of mental health care to students will not decrease. Monroe said that discussions surrounding the transfer of tasks have already begun.
“We will absolutely prioritize the mental health needs of our students across all five buildings,” Monroe said. “We will not sacrifice that in any way, shape or form.”
The decision was one made neither quickly nor lightly, with the board taking multiple hours over the course of several meetings to discuss possible impacts of the change.
Acknowledging that the future is still uncertain in many ways, the board agreed to revisit the conversation in the late fall of 2021. At that point, the board will decide whether to stay at four school psychologists or to hire an additional, putting the district at 5.0 FTE.
When the district had previously moved to five school psychologists, it had 600 more students. The position was later reduced to 4.8 FTE when a slight decrease in hours was requested by a fulltime psychologist.
Even with the reduction of a position, Monroe schools are among the top in the state in terms of the pupil to school psychologist ratio.
At 4.8 FTEs, Monroe is 30th out of Wisconsin’s 425 school districts for psychologist cost per pupil, putting the district in the top 10% in the state. The district also has the 18th lowest pupil to school psychologist ratio in the state.